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Call to Edit

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Often, mid-edit, I’ll pick up on a pattern of overuse or misuse. I’ll have to go back through the story and edit all of the instances of overuse or misuse that I’m newly aware of. Today, we’re talking about misuse with Tyler Vendetti‘s list of commonly misused words!

One word I’m particularly embarrassed about misusing is when I used “pour” for “pore,” as in, “He poured over ancient tomes.” As soon as I learned I was wrong, I corrected it: He pored over ancient tomes.

I’m sure we’ve all misused one of these. I’m a little confused about 3, but I guess that happens. Oh, and my aunt is particularly fond of using 7. Ahem. Click on the picture to see this words list on Hello Giggles!

The lifeless corpse stood up and wandered aimlessly through the dark night.

I wrote about the wonders of redundancy before, but I’ve never used it for A Call to Edit. That’s probably because this is Cicero Grade’s first Call to Edit…cue the trumpets!

So in “A Call to Edit,” I encourage writers to take to their manuscripts and weed out all instances of the current subject. This time, we’ll be looking for redundancies like “sitting down,” “nodding yes,” and “screaming loudly.”

I’ve noticed that redundancies happen a lot with characters who are supposed to be intellectual. Note their dialogue, because it’s rampant:

“Tell me what it is that you need me to do.”

Sure, dialogue is the end-zone for grammarians. Okay, if you say so. Just look at this:

“Tell me what you need.”

Bravo! See how much more effective that is? Imagine this is as a whisper, a shout, or a threat. You don’t get that kind of versatility with all those extra words!

Take to your pages and post any redundancies you catch for a chance to win a Cicero Grade edit of 2,000 words!